The vicar drew his chair a little closer to the invalid. “I am very, very sorry to cause you any sort of trouble, but I want to ask you to use your influence with him; I want to ask you to give him something of your own state of mind.” The widow looked at the vicar in surprise. “But,” she said softly, “it is my boy John who has made me as I am.” The vicar was a little disconcerted. “Surely,” he said, “it is God who has made you what you are.” “Yes, but it is through my boy John that He has wrought upon me.” “Indeed! Tell me how that came to be.” The widow shook her head and smiled to herself. “Don’t ask me to do that,” she said. “It is a long and wonderful story.” But the vicar insisted. “No, no, I can’t tell you. I don’t think anyone would believe me. And the time has not yet come for the story to be told.” The vicar still insisted, but this feeble creature had a will as tenacious as his own. His curiosity had been fully aroused, but common sense told him that in all human probability he had to deal with the hallucinations of an old and bed-ridden woman. A simple intensity of manner and words oddly devout made it clear that she was in a state of grace, yet it would seem to be rooted in some illusion in which her worthless son was involved. Although the vicar was without subtlety, he somehow felt that it would hardly be right to shatter that illusion. At the same time the key to his character was duty. And his office asked that in this case it should be rigidly performed. Let all possible light be cast upon the mental history of this man, even if an old and poor woman be stricken in the process. A cruel dilemma was foreshadowed, but let it be faced manfully. “Mrs. Smith,” he said after a trying pause, “I am very sorry, but there is bad news to give you of your son.” The effect of the words was remarkable. “Oh, what has happened to him?” The placid face changed in an instant; one hand clutched at the thin bosom. The vicar hastened to quell her fears. “Nothing has happened to him,” he said in a grave, kind tone, “but I grieve to say that his conduct leaves much to be desired.” The widow could only stare at the vicar incredulously. “I am greatly troubled about him. For a long time now I have known him to be a disseminator of idle and mischievous opinions. I have long suspected him of being a corrupter of our village youth. This morning”--carried away by a sudden warmth of feeling the vicar forgot the mother’s frailty--“he insulted my daughter with a most blasphemous remark, and when I ventured to remonstrate with him he entered upon a farrago of light and meaningless talk. In a word, Mrs. Smith, much as it grieves me to say so, I find your son an atheist, a socialist and a freethinker and I am very deeply concerned for his future in this parish.”